Hailo lays off 17 London employees

Taxi-hailing app Hailo has laid off 17 employees in London, out of its 150 employees worldwide, as part of a plan to “rebalance its engineering structure” and “shift focus towards accelerating our business growth and operational delivery off the back of this platform,” according to CEO Andrew Pinnington.

The company also said the last quarter was “the strongest sales quarter in the company’s history, with double-digit month-on-month growth.”

TechCrunch has reported that it is also looking to raise $20 million in a new funding round, although the company has not commented on this.

In October 2014, Hailo pulled out of the US after being unable to compete in a market in which rivals Uber and Lyft were engaged in a price war, and at the same time announced new products such as Pay with Hailo and Hailo for Business.

It now operates in five markets – UK, Ireland, Japan, Singapore and Spain.

In late 2013 and early 2014, Hailo received $50 million in funding from a group of Asian investors “to expedite growth in the more than 20 cities” in which it operates, and to date has raised just over $100 million.

Compared to this, Uber has raised $4.9 billion to date and Lyft has raised $862.5 million.

But Hailo differs from its competitors in that it helps people book and pay for black and yellow cabs via the app rather than running its own fleet.